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I think, the first goal was disallowed for an offside position of #3. The position was tight, but clear enough with the replay. The question is, whether his movement towards ball is enough to assess it as punishable, because he does not really influence an opponent. The second situation is very tight, if the VARs can solve it clearly with technical help, it's OK to give the offside. But why has Marciniak to review it then...?On the penalty situation I agree, that it is not enough for a clear penalty.

A couple of questions for someone that follows CONCACAF closer:1. if Mexico or USA lose in semi-finals, should a referee from those countries be expected in final? Or is there some sort of preliminary decision before the semis?2. who is ahead in Mexico at the moment? Garcia or Ramos? I know the former has much more experience and the latter is much younger, but is there any idea which of the two should be expected at WC? Even both might be possible, though (as in 2006 and 2010, with two Mexican referees getting appointments).

1) I'm pretty sure that the referee committee has a group of referees from various countries who would be candidates for the Final pior to the start of the competition. As the tournament plays out. Either based on referee performance or advancement of certain teams. The list gets whittled down. If the US or Mexico were to fail to advance to the Final. I'd personally assign a non US or Mexican referee. My reasoning is that at this particular Gold Cup. Most teams are not fielding their top team or players. So the level of play had been quite below standard. So it would be a great opportunity for a new have to work the Final. I'd suggest Pitti from Panama or Hector Rodriguez from Honduras.

2) In regards to Roberto Garcia Orozco vs Cesar Ramos Palazuelos. Garcia is vastly experienced. But he was unlucky to have become an International referee at a time where Mexico had to greats like Armando Archundia and Marco Rodriguez. So he was always in their shadow. Correctly Garcia is considered to be the top referee in the Mexican Liga MX.Cesar Ramos of also highly respected in the Mexican League. However his young career hasn't been free of controversy. A lot of it simply due to his inexperience. He was pushed quite fast by the Mexican referee committee. But he has now had the time to develope and he's become an excellent referee.

In summary, Garcia is at his last chance for a World Cup. But Ramos at the moment seems to be liked by the FIFA and CONCACAF referee committee's. Simply based on experience and his history I'd choose Garcia. Ramos is still young and will have opportunities in the future.

Thank you for the details. I have never watched Ramos and just had the chance to watch a 2-3 games from Garcia at 2015 and 2016 Copa America. I appreciated how he could keep a very calm attitude in easy games and be more strict in heated games (he handled Argentina-Colombia in 2015 and started with one YC for each side for dissent in the 1st half, the european TV commentary was happy with that). On the other hand, he had some troubles in assessing penalty area incidents during Venezuela-Argentina in 2016.

Anyway, this is to say that I'd like to see him at WC. Maybe CONCACAF might select him, Geiger and Aguilar as main referees and keep Ramos as reserve official, to get experience for the next WCs (he could still participate to 2022 and 2026). With maybe Montero and Pitti as VARs, given under 20 WC experience?

I was forgetting about Walter Lopez, but he doesn't seem to be very trusted by CONCACAF. I mean, with his experience and the absence of Guatemala from the knockout stage he could have got more than a quarter-final. Moreover, I seem to remember from the comments on this blog that he didn't perform so well at 2017 under 20 WC.

I don't know why the FIFA referee has a habit of overlooking vastly experienced referee's in order to push young inexperienced referee's. I see it in Peru where Haro had been placed ahead of Carrillo. In Venezuela where Valenzuela had leapfrogged Soto. And of course in Mexico where Ramos is being pushed instead of going with the more experienced and seasoned veteran Garcia.

I'm not going to give much consideration on who has or doesn't have VAR experience. Because overall and worldwide, very few referee's are going to have substantial VAR experience. So unfortunately in a years time in Russia we're going to see much of the same that we saw at the Confederations Cup. VAR is too new of a program and much of it is very vague. Not to mention that very few league's around the globe actually use it or train for it.

I'd like to see Garcia as main official, as I said, but the other way could be an option too. Anyway, for referees with little VAR experience hopefully there will be many seminars on VAR, especially after the issues had at Confederations Cup. I am looking forward to see significant improvements, and still believe that VAR can be very helpful, if used cleverly. For instance, some very debated incidents such as England's goal in 2010 against Germany, Suarez' bite or Matuidi's RC offence in 2014 would have been spotted. The first at least for sure.

Great assignment for Montero! It begins to look as if he's overtaken Bejarano for the top official from Costa Rica in the referee committee's eyes.

If it's a USA-Mexico Final. I'd say it's either Pitti or Hector Rodriguez. I'm going to overlook Walter Lopez based on the fact that he handled the USA-Mexico World Cup qualifier just prior to the Confederations Cup.If it's a USA-Jamaica Final. Then Cesar Ramos can also be taken into consideration.

Then probably all of us were given wrong information... Even the Gold Cup website announced Montero as the man in the middle (http://www.goldcup.org/en/article/semifinal-glance-mexico-v-jamaica). Probably the info of the group stage match between both teams was copied...

I agree DutchRef. Torres was beyond fortunate to stay on the field after that brutal and late into the ankle tackle. Unfortunately I am not surprised at all seeing a caution being issued in place of a send off. It goes in line with this modern referee trend of being overly lenient and under punishing offences.

Montero is Pitti's. Could CONCACAF have made the switch in order to "save" Montero for the Final? Or did one of teams object to Montero being assigned as the center referee?Overall very strange procedures by CONCACAF and it's Referee Committee.

Very true Nando. Indeed Roberto Garcia was assigned to a Liga MX match this past Friday night along with his AR's Camargo and Morin. They worked the Tijuana vs Cruz Azul match which was played in Tijuana, B.C., Mexico.

Why the comments are always OFF-TOPIC? This is the topic about CL 3rd qualifying round. It's impossible to follow an argument if everyone write all the things that are flowing in their mind about refereeing!

I partly understand your comment and I would agree with you if there was a different post about Gold Cup, but there isn't in this blog (and I certainly can't blame the blog administrator, as there is always so much going on and not all competitions can be followed accurately). But, as proved by the number of comments above, it seems that Gold Cup interests users, as we will talk about some of those referees next summer at WC and I think it is important to know their background and past performances when assessing them. In terms of how the appointments are made and confederation neutrality, they will have a huge impact on European and South American teams. For instance, Italy has had 3 CONCACAF referees in the past 6 games at WC, between 2010 and 2014.

Anyway, one thing that could help - and I apologise for not doing that before - is to use the 'reply' function when the topic is the same.

@Dencin Cuin I'm really sorry, you are right about that.Main problem, as Osborne correctly pointed out, is that it is impossible to cover all competitions, because it takes too much time and very often we can't open new posts. At the same time, given that this is a blog about world refereeing, I wouldn't find fair to forbid discussions about other tournaments in our posts. I hope you get our point, however we will try to do something in future in order to offer a better service to all our readers. Another thing is that there could be moments in which a competition is more discussed than another one for some reasons, but a few later the discussion ends. This is the main problem of a blog, we should have a platform like a forum, but this would be very difficult to manage.Please understand how much difficult our work is, especially when time is missing.

I understand your opinion, but having more "active" posts at the same time actually makes it more complicated to get all comments. If we had additional posts for Gold Cup and Women's EURO at the moment, you would have to check five pages to read all new comments on the blog (or at least remember all 5 comment count numbers...). Of course, that might be different, if you are only interested in a specific topic.So I actually like it more with the current solution, that you comment things without specific blog entry under the latest post, even if it is unrelated.

@Chefren Well, a forum is not that difficult to create and maintain, if you have help. You have there a few users which could help you out with moderation tasks such as RayHD, DutchRef, and others (if they wanted to do so, of course). To be honest, I think that would be the best platform possible for this kind of content. The blog has the useful feature of helping with reporting news, but when it comes to discussion about situations, it is fairly uncomfortable with the post limit and the off-topics. In a forum, just a new topic on the relevant subforum would be opened and that would be (almost) it.

If at any point you decide to give it a try, I could help you to create it if you wish.

I get all my news and viewpoints from the blog but I don't write. I leave that to the referee experts (which I am not). I can design websites and I would offer to design a domain that doesn't have the restrictions for commenting, add pages and update immediately, and create as many threads as you like. If this is something you may be interested in, reply to this comment. I feel bad free loading on your blog and I am willing to contribute in areas where I am knowledgeable and help the admin of this blog with the transition and upkeep. I have seen this blog gain steam over the years that I have followed it, and our own website might be the next step.

Partly I agree with you, but it is sure that there will be at least one Mexican in Russia, with Geiger and Aguilar, CONCACAF surely will want four referees, and Walter Lopez Castellanos is really the only man who join WC2018 with the other three.Just like selecting Rocchi for UEFA Super Cup, it is deserved for his career and creating more pros for sending him to the WC. However for FIFA surely one Centroamericano referee is 'enough', and more likely to see Garcia and Ramos attend WC2018, than Garcia/Ramos and Lopez. CONCACAF is always a guess though, and there's always Aguilar... ;-)

It would be very interesting to know whether he could see the tackle at all (should not he move a bit more to the left? Otherwise the two defenders could block his line of vision). I tend to penalty. The attacker sought it, but the tackle is clearly mistimed and we cannot expect from an attacker to jump over such a tackle (in this case he would not get the ball anymore..).

Apart from that situation, an expected level performance. Good rapport with players, ability to prevent potential conflicts, visible good teamwork. Maybe fitness level was not the best, but one has to take into account that it's Azerbaijan - extremely high humidity! Both teams approched the referee team after final whistle to say 'good job' to them - it says enough.

Two potential yellow cards not given:https://streamable.com/i1cmbhttps://streamable.com/t5idh

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5uss4zPenalty and RC for DOGSO by Bastian Dankert.Once whistled, of course color of card is red without doubts, but one can discuss about the real effect of the "foul". I think, however, that referee can be absolutely supported.

Anyone watched Massa?I would like to discuss about his performance, especially about soft skills,card and men managment. There were some very interesting situations including incident on the half time where one player threw bottle to the stands and wasn't punished at all.

79' - Extremely stupid behaviour from Gnohéré. He deliberately kicks the ball in an opponent's legs, then creates a confrontation/contact with an opponent and simulates an injury... Two yellow cards = red card would be my choice.https://streamable.com/q9yv8

@RayHD situation involving Gnohéré in 79' is indeed very interesting.Merely according to LotG, it should be a double YC. The first for having kicked deliberately the ball against an opponent (not excessive force, otherwise even RC), the second for the clear simulation. He pretended a hit in order to make the opponent booked by referee. Now, can we include both misconducts in only one YC? My answer is NO, but at the same time I understand referee's decision. Showing two YCs and explaining the reasons would have been excellent, but in my opinion most of the observers could back the choice made on the pitch. For me in this situation NO CARD would be a serious mistake, YC the "standard" and maybe acceptable, 2 YCs and RC the excellence...

In this case, one should be sure that attacker in offside touched the ball before it crossed the line. I think that, based on video footage, this is impossible to say. However, the sensation is that the call is correct.

Poor performance of Treimanis. He missed almost everything of importance (penalty, handball, two or three cards or at least warnings), including deliberate elbow kick to Palcic's jaw who was even bleeding (right in front of AR1, around 85').

Remarkable performance of Del Cerro Grande in Nice. Very fit, multiple cautions (7 YC completely ok for me), good PK rejects and strong personality with players even Balotelli was calm down clearly and booked. 8,5-8,6 for me. Very good management with stop the play when spectator was caught on pitch. Only one or two fouls missed. Great refereeing !

I'm not an expert but is it normal to restart with a referee ball? Now Ajax had earned a corner kick, so Nice had the advantage of their own supporter. Looks strange to me

I agree with a good Performence of Del Cerro Grande. But in my opinion he missed a yellow card for Balotelli after he throw his shoes away in the direction of his opponent(!) In that case Balotelli receive a 2x yellow card later in the match

Underneath some of the more interesting refereeing moments of this game.I totally agree on an overall very good performance of Del Cerro Grande. As Benoit stated, excellent fitness level and very adequate movement and positioning, nearly faultless foul detection, good management, good communication and consistent disciplinary approach. Minor aspect is that in his communication he could sometimes be a little less formal.Having said this for me one mandatory YC was missed (16' Koziello fouling Ziyech), and regarding the supporter-incident I have to disagree with the restart. As the referee did not stop the match before the ball was outside the field of play, technically the dropped ball was a wrong decision and a goal kick should have been awarded (as I think Neres touched the ball last).But, all in all, very strong performance of the Spaniard!

Hello Hans. No, referee ball is mandatory because corner kick was owned few seconds after spectator's incident. Agree with Nice benefit but this is simply perfect law application by Spanish ref. Uefa will punish Nice for that after. Concerning Balotelli, I think that ref missed foul on him (shoe was put off by Ajax player )and consequently ref decided in a good management way to my taste to "blind" this incident. Very intelligent tactical approach for me. ;)

Hey DutchRef. Agree with your vision but i think Del Cerro Grande was helped by one member of his team and decided after to restart play with referee ball. In this case, I think his decision is ok and should be back at ok by Uefa observer. No ? ;)